94
THE MESTA
commons, giving the entregadores one-third of all fines which they
levied for such offences? Meanwhile the Cortes had continued
to voice a country-wide protest against this particular form of
aggression on the part of the Mesta officials. The most forceful
and convincing evidence, however, was brought against the en-
tregadores toward the close of the sixteenth century, in an im-
portant series of reports which had been sent in by a score of
Corregidores and other agents of the central government. These
men had been sent out to investigate agricultural conditions in
central and southern Castile and with striking unanimity they
denounced the interference of the entregadores with the exten-
sion of arable lands. They declared that such arbitrary power in
the hands of this unscrupulous itinerant judiciary was unques-
tionably the most potent factor in keeping down the quantity as
well as the quality of the agricultural population.2 Even Philip II
and his ministers, patrons though they were of the Mesta and its
judiciary, could not lose sight of one fundamental principle of
mercantilism: the tax-paying potentiality of the rural population
was far too significant an asset to be lightly ignored. It was not
long, therefore, before the entregadores found themselves em-
barrassed by unexpected hostility and pressure from the Royal
Council.
Curiously enough, the opposition of the Cortes to the entre-
gador began to weaken at about the same time. The deputies
were apparently less and less concerned over the attempts of the
Mesta judiciary to break down local enclosures. The last impor-
tant discussion of that question by the deputies occurred in 1600.3
One might at first be led to suppose from this either that the
Mesta had triumphed completely over all opposition or that the
entregadores had ceased to intrude upon questions of enclosures.
The real explanation, however, was that there had been dis-
1 Quad. 1731, pt. 2, p. 290; Arch. Mesta, Prov. i, 105.
t Bib. Nac. Madrid, Ms. 9372, fols. 31-40. Among the remedies suggested for
rural depopulation was that the Moriscos should be forbidden to follow their ac-
customed ‘ unproductive ’ calling of peddling small wares, and should be divided
up among the rural districts as agricultural laborers.
s Cortes de CastiUa, xix, p. 547. There are later references to the subject in the
debates, but this is the last of any significance.
the Entregador and the towns
95
covered a most effective means of circumventing the mandates of
the entregador by appealing from his decisions to the chancü-
Ierias or high courts. This we shall take up later.1
Before leaving this topic of the jurisdiction of entregadores
over enclosures, one other aspect of the problem remains to be
discussed, namely the efforts of the Mesta, through its judges, to
control and exploit the licensing of enclosures. The commissions
issued to entregadores in the Middle Ages had authorized them
to inspect the royal licenses permitting any enclosures of common
lands. By virtue of this authority the more audacious entrega-
dores had come to regard themselves as the agents of the crown
for the granting of such licenses. They soon put into effective use
this quite unwarranted extension of their powers by employing it
to secure a further source of income to themselves.2 Although
during the weaker monarchy of the fifteenth century they were
thus able to encroach upon the royal prerogative with impunity,
they were sharply brought to terms by the ascendant authority
of the crown in the succeeding period. In 1502 a royal mandate
was issued to prevent the entregadores from granting such li-
censes for their own profit.3 The penalty to be paid by towns or
individuals who failed to secure the royal license was raised, in
1509, from one hundred to three hundred maravedis, and was
increased later in the century “ to any figure not exceeding ten
thousand maravedis.”4 The letters of appointment issued to
entregadores by Ferdinand and Isabella during this period were
very clear in their stipulations that the crown alone could grant
licenses for the enclosure either of special town pastures or of
arable land.5 The codified laws which were drawn up later were
even more explicit: “No person, assembly, or community of any
sort whatever may make an enclosure without our royal license;
l See pp. 113 ff.
’ Arch. Mesta, B-ι, Baeza, 1432: a good illustration of this from Andalusia,
where the entregador went so far as to draw up the schedule of fines to be collected
by guards called deheseros from hunters, charcoal burners, and other trespassers
upon the dehesa boyal, said fines to be paid to himself.
3 Ibid., Prov. i, 22.
4 Nov. Recop., lib. 7, tit. 27, ley 5, cap. 28.
, Arch. Ayunt. Cuenca, leg. 12, no. 5 (1509); Arch. Simancas, Diversos de Cas-
tilla, no. 909 (1516).